Wednesday, December 19, 2012

So I'm waiting through the bloody adverts for this movie to play which annoys me because I've paid for a ticket and I don't want adverts with that ticket. I don't mind the usual small business pimping for an after show bite or drink, that I respect, what I can't stand are big business adverts selling me shit (for the record Bic shavers are crap and I wouldn't buy a Kea car).

So I'm sitting through the adverts and a Mum and Dad waltz in with four children all under the age of 7 and sit down in front of me. Now this is concerning for me because it's a violent James Bond action film and not what I would first think of as suitable entertainment for 7 year olds, I check the censorship rating and it's surprisingly 'M' meaning as long as Mum and Dad are with you, you can watch what you like.

I find this terribly unsettling.

So after the first two great movies by Daniel Craig (Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace), I was expecting great things. I was a wee bit disappointed.

It starts out with Bond in the middle of some non-judicial assassination that seems to make drone strikes like surgical. I'm sure the collateral damage in the first 15 minutes alone breaks almost every UN convention on the books.

There's a fight, Bond gets accidentally shot and spends the next couple of months recuperating and keeping out of sight.

He also has sex. The 7 year olds giggle.

During his time away Mi6 gets targeted by a terrorist attack and Bond decides he is needed back for Queen & country.

Turns out the attack is blowback from a nasty little betrayal M has been involved in during the Hong Kong handover. Javier Bardem's character, Raul Silva, seems to have every reason to want to screw Mi6. 6 months of being tortured by the Chinese will do that. I like the jaws reference to the old Bond when we see the dentists bill Raul has been left with from faulty cyanide pills.

This makes it difficult because from here on in you are cheering for Raul and his vision for a free market global dirty deeds done dirt cheap franchise. What doesn't help is the appalling speed the movie turns into a Home Alone with grenades.

5 Comments:

Yes , and in fifteen years time , four now twenty two year olds will be bewildered as to why they just bought Kia cars with all the status and class of lip cancer and curse the Bic shavers they always buy while wondering why Bic ever branched away from making cheap disposable pens .

I was watching a fabulous movie called ' The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 'the other night .It was a beautiful and poignant film shot in Rajasthan in India and while I've never been to India , I'm now compelled to go ( and may not come back )

There was one scene in particular shot on a busy street . As the camera panned across the sultry pandemonium that is Asia , a nice , new , clean , GE sign fitted to a lamppost glared in luminosity into the subconscious minds of all who would have watched that charming , innocent and beautiful little film . Seeing GE in that film was obscene . Vulgar . It was like watching someone shit or spit or pick their nose . There was something in there for me that was an insult to the film and immediately relegated it to rank commercial status , just like almost every other film now being shot world wide . Luckily for me that feeling was consumed again in the films beauty but I wonder how long it will be before The Beast consumes India too ?

Now , you might think I'm being negative and doom profiting , well I am . But I also have an idea . It's not an original idea at all but it's what I'm doing . It's how I live my life and I'm not saying people should live life like me ...but they should . Hahaha !

Create your own little India . Make your life an artistic endeavour . Create an installation of your home . Invite art , style , class and beauty into your house no matter how humble . Fix things instead of borrowing GE money for the new thing . And let me ask you this ? If you do these things . If you created a utopia for yourself and your family that was colour and beauty ... what would you do if some gangster threatened your own paradise ? What would you do ? What did the Indians do ? What did the Arabs do ? What did the Burmese do ? What do we do ? No wonder They want to force feed us like French geese , on nasty West Coast USA junk . Why did Jonky-stien go to LA again ? Is that Jonky-stien taking away your garden ornaments ?

We're not Sleepy Hobbits , we're anesthetized Hobbits who will one day wake up in unfamiliar surroundings with our pantys around our ankles .

Totally agree Bomber. I've always been a huge Bond fan but have to say this was one of my least favorites and left me pretty disappointed. Still an ok movie, but would 007 ever accept being just "ok" at anything!?